The Card Players

The Card Players is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. The versions vary in size and in the number of players depicted. Cézanne also completed numerous drawings and studies in preparation for The Card Players series.
One version of The Card Players was sold in 2011 to the Royal Family of Qatar for a price variously estimated at between $250 million and $300 million, making it the second most expensive work of art ever sold.

Overview

The series is considered by critics to be a cornerstone of Cézanne's art during the early-to-mid 1890s period, as well as a "prelude" to his final years, when he painted some of his most acclaimed work.

Each painting depicts Provençal peasants immersed in smoking their pipes and playing cards. The subjects, all male, are displayed as studious within their card playing, eyes cast downward, intent on the game at hand. Cézanne adapted a motif from 17th-century Dutch and Frenchgenre painting which often depicted card games with rowdy, drunken gamblers in taverns, replacing them instead with stone-faced tradesmen in a more simplified setting. Whereas previous paintings of the genre had illustrated heightened moments of drama, Cézanne's portraits have been noted for their lack of drama, narrative, and conventional characterization. Other than an unused wine bottle in the two-player versions, there is an absence of drink and money, which were prominent fixtures of the 17th century genre. A painting by one of the Le Nain brothers, hung in an Aix-en-Provence museum near the artist's home, depicts card players and is widely cited as an inspiration for the works by Cézanne.

The Card

Like much of Bennett's best work, it is set in the Potteries District of Staffordshire. It chronicles the rise of Edward Henry ("Denry") Machin from washerwoman's son to Mayor of Bursley (a fictitious town based on Burslem). This is accomplished through luck, initiative and a fair bit of chutzpah (in slang a card is a 'character', an 'original'; a clever, audacious, person).

Denry Machin returned, as the slightly more mature "Edward Henry", in Bennett's sequel The Regent (1913) (titled The Old Adam in its first U.S. edition).

Plot

The novel begins when "Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on May 27, 1867"—the very day of Bennett's own birth. At age 12, Denry begins his career by altering his marks in a test sufficiently to earn him a scholarship to grammar school. At 16, he leaves school to work for Mr Duncalf, the town clerk and a solicitor. Duncalf is responsible for organizing an exclusive ball; Denry "invites" himself, then also a few others in exchange for things he will need, such as lessons from dance instructor Ruth Earp. On a bet, he audaciously asks the energetic, beautiful Countess of Chell to dance. Everyone, including Machin, is in awe of the Countess (apparently based on the real-life Duchess of Sutherland) and he thus earns himself the reputation of a "card" (a "character", someone able to set tongues wagging) - a reputation he is determined to cement.

The Card

Father puts an ad on the personal pageThe print is black and clearSaying Mary please writePlease don't drop out of siteMary, we love you dearMary, we want you hereOh, Mary, why did you disappear?Mother sits at home by the telephoneHer tears won't cease to flowPraying Mary will callBut there's no call at allMary, where did you go?That's all we want to knowOh, Mary, call us and say helloMeanwhile in the cityMary looks prettyeating an ice cream coneWith her childhood pastShe's free at lastAnd making it on her own Jimmy puts an ad on the personal pageHe can't believe they're throughDarling, I was so blindBut I'm changing my mindMary I'll marry youJust like you want me toWe'll do whatever you want to doWhen the ads are in and the type is setThe printer makes a plateThen it goes off to pressWill the ad bring success?Jimmy can hardly waitMother is in a stateThey still don't know that it's much too lateMary, the escaper, picks up a paperReads what the columns sayWalking through a crowd she laughs out loudAnd tosses the sheet away

The Card Players

The Card Players is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. The versions vary in size and in the number of players depicted. Cézanne also completed numerous drawings and studies in preparation for The Card Players series.
One version of The Card Players was sold in 2011 to the Royal Family of Qatar for a price variously estimated at between $250 million and $300 million, making it the second most expensive work of art ever sold.

Overview

The series is considered by critics to be a cornerstone of Cézanne's art during the early-to-mid 1890s period, as well as a "prelude" to his final years, when he painted some of his most acclaimed work.

Each painting depicts Provençal peasants immersed in smoking their pipes and playing cards. The subjects, all male, are displayed as studious within their card playing, eyes cast downward, intent on the game at hand. Cézanne adapted a motif from 17th-century Dutch and Frenchgenre painting which often depicted card games with rowdy, drunken gamblers in taverns, replacing them instead with stone-faced tradesmen in a more simplified setting. Whereas previous paintings of the genre had illustrated heightened moments of drama, Cézanne's portraits have been noted for their lack of drama, narrative, and conventional characterization. Other than an unused wine bottle in the two-player versions, there is an absence of drink and money, which were prominent fixtures of the 17th century genre. A painting by one of the Le Nain brothers, hung in an Aix-en-Provence museum near the artist's home, depicts card players and is widely cited as an inspiration for the works by Cézanne.

Latest News for: the card players

The tiny, oil-rich nation of Qatar has purchased a Paul Cézanne painting, TheCardPlayers, for more than $250 million ... But multiple sources confirm the record purchase of TheCardPlayers.TheDeal ... to theCardPlayers series—noticeably absent the elusive Embiricos one....

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